If summer 2026 is the summer of sport, for fashion brands, it’s also the summer of WAGs — the wives and girlfriends of high-profile athletes. As the two industries continue to converge and more viewers than ever rally behind their favorite teams and players, brands also need to be watching the sidelines. There, the partners of players are getting plenty of airtime of their own — all while taking and appearing in content that circulates for days on socials.
The NBA craze of the last few weeks has made plain how much attention there is on the women showing up game after game. “The bag’s undefeated,” Knicks player Karl-Anthony Towns said while posing post-win with his fiancée Jordyn Woods, who sat courtside with what came to be known as her lucky orange bag on her lap each game of the finals. The bag is from her own brand, Woods by Jordyn, and is currently available on pre-order.
The Knicks fervor shows no signs of slowing, and was boosted throughout the weekend with a string of World Cup games that will continue through mid-July. Before the soccer final, Wimbledon will kick off on June 29 (followed by the US Open in late August), and F1 races will continue throughout the summer, with Austria, the UK and Belgium among the European cities drivers will hit before heading to Singapore, the US and Mexico later this year. Each event will attract its own line-up of partners there to support.
“WAGs connect so well to audiences, because they sit in a sweet spot between relatable and aspirational for young generations,” says Lea Mao, head of marketing at influencer marketing platform Lefty. They’re often young, and give a sense of ‘it could be you’. About 84% are aged between 18 and 34, while 80% are female — a highly coveted sweet spot for brands. “By bridging casual daily life with high-glam sports culture, [WAGs] offer brands a pre-built, culturally hot media cycle that doesn’t need to be manufactured.”
The summer might have only just begun, but WAGs across basketball, F1, and tennis have already generated $25.2 million in earned media value (EMV), according to Lefty. (EMV is the investment required for an advertiser to generate the same level of social media impact.) F1 WAGs dominated, driving $12 million of this EMV, closely followed by NBA WAGs, who generated $10.8 million. (Soccer wasn’t included in this analysis as the World Cup is only just beginning.)
